Spatial pattern and developing mechanism of railway geo-systems based on track gauge:A case study of Eurasia

基于路轨的铁路地缘系统格局及形成机理——以欧亚大陆为例

The railway is an indispensable feature of a nation’s infrastructure,and the gauge isan internal and objective technical regulation of the railway.In the large-scale regional space,the track gauges reflect the development differences,historical relations and mutual influencesbetween countries and regions.This makes the railway,originally as a regional connection,have special social,political,military and other multiple attributes.Based on this,thepaper,from the perspective of railway gauge,takes the Eurasian continent as the case regionto explore the spatial pattern,formation mechanism and organizational mode of communicationof the Eurasian continental railway geo-system.The results show that 11 kinds of railwaygauge structures exist in Eurasia,which respectively belong to three types of wide-gauge,standard-gauge,and narrow-gauge,but the mainstream gauge only includes 1520 mm,1435mm and 1067 mm.Considerable variation in the coverage length and space range of differentgauges is apparent,which provides a physical and technological basis for railway systemdifferentiation and network fragmentation,which leads to the formation of eight railwaygeo-systems.Due to different modes for railway transport management in different geographicallocations,the geographical pattern and geographical relationship of four transportorganizations are formed.What especially important is the emergence of“1435 gauge space”and“1520 gauge space”,as well as the railway geo-space confrontation between them,onthe Eurasian continent.Besides,we also find that the railway geo-system of Eurasia is mainlyaffected by the technology dissemination,path dependence,geopolitics,national defenseand the colonial expansion of military latitude,and on this basis,five geo-modes of railwaygauge propagation are formed.